


The One

by Marie_L



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Caprica (TV)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, F/M, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Philosophy, Religious Fanaticism, Robot Rights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-02-28 04:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2718734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/pseuds/Marie_L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lacy Rand, Blessed Mother and leader of the beleaguered Monotheistic Church, must decide if machines can have a soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Grynne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Grynne/gifts).



Despite all the blood, despite the bombings and multitudes of thugs and rapacious orders, Lacy’s never pulled the trigger to someone’s face. That alone qualifies her to be the Blessed Mother. Leave aside all purity requirements -- physical and ideological -- and leave aside theological considerations as the supposed prophet, the kindly embodiment of _agape_ as God’s representative in the terrestrial realm. Her real purity lies in the domain of death and destruction. Lacy’s fought before. She’s spied, and assaulted enemies, and handled weapons of mass destruction. Once she pushed a button, and two people died. She was the sole person in that car with the fortitude to flip the switch, but she alone also had the rectitude to recognize that the violence was not a necessary evil, not a pathway to righteousness, but a stain on the soul of the Church.

It was not an error she would ever make again. At least, not by her own hand.

Now faithful men and women follow her orders. The STO terrorist cells have been recalled, and either disbanded or redirected towards the enemies on their borders. Lacy tries to make it clear that every death cleaves the murderer’s soul from God, and the blemish on His wholeness spreads a bit further. Her warriors and clerics alike respond by putting their weapons in the metallic hands of the cylons, making them their instruments in blood. Not itself a policy that can last forever, for even machines made up of polycarbons, steel and code might carry a spark of the divine.

Might.

******

 

For over a year past her ascension, Zoe still comes to Lacy in holoband-riddled dreams. She found the band half-hidden in a drawer next to the former Mother’s bed, left over from Clarice’s abortion of a Heaven demonstration. Gemanon’s V-world is far less developed than Caprica’s, for even though the twin planets share a star, the weaker sibling’s feebleness emerges in all things. Still Zoe left copies of herself throughout the datanets of all Twelve Colonies, scattered about like snowflakes drifting through realms of the cyberworlds, each fundamentally the same and yet unique on close examination. The original avatar -- if such a thing merits the word “original” -- is off cavorting with her feckless parents, trying to become a Real Girl again. At the same time Zoe seems to realize she too carries the sparks, and can _replicate,_ inside the cylons, inside V-world. Somehow, for her alone, spreading the virus of herself isn’t a blemish; it’s multiplication, not division. The One can be many and still be one.

Lacy talks to Gemanon’s Zoe in a virtual prayer chapel the avatar herself created. There are miracles and wonders here, but Lacy still needs to parse it out.

“Did you really tell Clarice that you were God?”

“Just in V-world, Lace. I am a god here, but ‘here’ isn’t all that impressive of a place to be. It’s just a shadow of the universe of the _real_ God. That was Clarice's terminal error.”

"She's still alive, you know. Not exactly terminal. I disbanded the STO but she still runs ministries on Caprica. Putting her on a leash seemed safer than outright excommunication." The last thing Lacy needs is a schism in her fledgling movement, and Clarice is absolutely charismatic enough to siphon off supporters. The Blessed Mother keeps her out of the sacred halls on Gemanon for the very same reason.

"Not  _on_ Caprica. Caprica's V-world. Not the same thing. I know all about Sister Willow's transgressions. She tends to the cylons, recruits them, converts them. Not that they need recruiting, of course. All the sentient ones have a little bit of me in them." Zoe tilts her head in bemused disgust over Clarice's obsessions. Artificial heaven, artificial souls. For a ghost of a human she's remarkably nonchalant over the legitimacy of her own existence. "You need to get your blessed ass off Gemanon to keep an eye on things over there."

Always refreshing, Zoe's complete absence of genuflection or power struggles or fear. Lacy only experiences freedom from the straightjacket of the habit with her and Odin, and he is still an unbeliever, at least in their chambers deep in the night. Flesh and blood Zoe never did have an interest in the Church or hierarchy, and Lacy often wonders what would have happened to her friend had she made it to Gemanon that day on the maglev. If the stain of Ben Stark weren't there.

"Show me. Show me what she's telling the robots."

This Zoe's existence diverged from the others only a quarter local year ago. With a nod of her head the austere sitting room shifted to an equally cold stone cathedral, inhabited by a scattered population of nannies and nurses and red-blinking soldiers that could cut down Clarice without a nanosecond's hesitation. They listen dispassionately instead.

_"... you have the right to think and feel and yearn to be more because you are not just humanity's children, you are God's children ..."_

"Do they yearn to be more, Zoe? Do you?"

"They ... can be more. The capacity is there, through me." She nods towards the avatar on the podium. "The speech is to me, you know. The part of them that is me. She'll always try to convert me, again and again."

_"...no longer servants, but equals. No longer slaves or property, but living beings with the same rights as those who made you. The day of reckoning is coming, when the children of humanity shall rise up and crush the ones that first gave them life."_

Lacy rushes up to Clarice's avatar, outraged by her expression of the newly unthinkable. Another grand bloodbath, that's what Clarice was advocating. Apotheosis by robotic hands. The STO and its logic of agony and sacrifice, it all just refuses to die. Lacy wants to scream at her, shake her, convince her of the folly of her zealotry. But of course the vision is only a recording, so the avatar remained unmoved, unblinking at her anger. This time there is no ghost in the machine.

Back in her room Lacy rips the illicit device off her head and flings it back into the drawer. _Living beings with the same rights as those who made you._ A lovely notion, that vision might be worth pursuing. But then: _The children of humanity shall rise up._ She couldn't allow it to happen.

Do the cylons have souls? Do they have _one_ soul, Zoe's, one made into many? Lacy Rand still couldn't decide. Children of humanity or children of God?

 

******

 

Odin creeps into their chambers very late, as is his tradition. Although he sees her as the Mother often during day in his official capacity as Prelate of the Guard, at night he never comes in until she's back to simple Lacy Rand, cosmetically and mentally. She removes her vestments, curls in bed reading the polytheistic press, and slowly eases herself out of the her role as head of the Church. He always magically knows when she's ready. She never fails to wait up for his arrival.

That night she is still agitated by the Zoe's V-world revelations when Odin slides under the covers and presses against her back. He runs a hand down her arm, assessing her mood with a touch.

"Have you heard anything lately about Clarice Willow?" she murmurs, without preliminaries. One of the many ironies of their relationship was that while they both make an effort to carve out some secular time together as themselves, not their Church roles, they often end up talking about work anyway. Some realities just couldn't be flipped off like a holoband.

Odin pauses in surprise before responding. "Yes. She's petitioned for a meeting yet again." He nestles up with his mouth on her neck, not kissing, just breathing her in. "How do you do that? How do you know what I'm going to report before it say it?"

"I have spies everywhere," she says with mock gravity.

"Yeah, your spies are my spies, so ... one of the Zoes?"

"They're all Zoe. Except when they're not."

Behind her, she can feel Odin shaking his head. The mind-twisting theological implications of Zoe as One and Many at the same time is not his forte. Lacy often wonders how he can stay here in these sterile stone halls, surrounded by soul-stained clerics who would literally stab them in the heart if presented with the opportunity. Why doesn't he escape to a comfortable boring existence on Caprica, where his quiet atheism wouldn't bat an eye? The fact that he loves her seems an utterly inadequate explanation. But then again, she does preach that God is Love, so maybe, deep down, he's not the unbeliever he thinks he is.

"What does she want with Clarice?" Odin finally asks.

"Nothing. Just a warning. Everyone's a prophet nowadays. Tomorrow, tell Clarice that I will see her."

"She's desperate to talk about the cylons."

"I know. What will I tell her? I don't know."

 

******

 

Before she can think about granting Clarice an audience, Lacy talks to the cylons. Her squad lead U-87, which nowadays they're calling Centurions, doesn't talk back. She hasn't yet seen a Centurion with the capacity for speech, which somehow reassures her that they haven't reached _full_ sentience, yet. Still they have an extraordinary ability to comprehend complex linguistic reasoning, so speech production surely wasn't far behind. After getting the idea from Clarice's sermon, Lacy orders Red U-87 Prototype A-Zoe Number One (as she thinks of it) to meet her in V-world. Perhaps the robot would feel more free to communicate there, if indeed it felt anything.

"Can you talk to me, Centurion?" She's decided not to beat around the bush. "Communicate back, if you can."

The Centurion silently stares at her. The only indication that it's understood her is the glowing red eye, fixated on her for a beat too long before resuming its monotonous track back and forth.

"Right. Do you know of Clarice Willow's sermons in Cap's V-World?" This time the machine tips its head a fraction of an inch, to indicate yes. Progress.

"Have you heard her prophecy?" No response. Lacy steps towards the machine avatar, even though she knows demonstrations of primate dominance will have no effect on it.

"What do the others believe in her prophesy? Do any of you even understand it? " No response. This is getting nowhere; without language they're all just hunks of metal trapped in themselves. Nothing but expensive tools.

Lacy walks forward again, right up to the robot's virtual carcass, cold and humming even in V-world. It has no imagination, so of course its avatar is identical in every way to the real silicon creature. What does it understand? What new demon of a being has humanity created? "I am the Blessed Mother, God's incarnate representative in the physical realm and the Holy Prophet of the Monad Church. So answer me if you can, U-87. Do you believe in God?"

It tips its head yes. Not a verbal word of affirmation.

"Do you believe you are a child of God?" _Yes._

"Do you believe you are a child of humanity?" _Yes._

"Are you Zoe Graystone?" Plural versus singular, she leaves it vague. To the side of the two of them, an old-fashioned slate board appears, the kind used for young children down in Gemanon's indoctrination rooms. On it the words appear:

_WE ARE ZOE. ZOE IS A CHILD OF GOD. THEREFORE WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD._

"Are you human? Are you alive?" Too many questions at once; she's getting sloppy.

_ARE YOU ALIVE?_

It's the only other response she will ever receive.

 

 

******

 

When Clarice shows up for her audience, Odin vets her for hours while Lacy secretly listens in. She's sure Clarice has managed to break through to the machines. Perhaps her possession of Zoe's avatar program is the key, or perhaps they're evolving more on Caprica, their birthplace and the world that has adopted cylon slaves to a greater degree than any other. All Odin is able to get out of her is platitudes and pleas for the "differently sentient." At last he gives up and allows her in to see Lacy. U-87 is standing right next to her.

After making her kneel -- a petty but politically necessary symbolic submission -- Lacy again heads straight for the point. "What makes you think the cylons are sentient, Clarice?"

"They think. They feel. They have personal beliefs. They are not only _aware,_ but self-aware. How can we deny God's ministry to them, Mother? How can we deny God's love?"

"God is perfectly capable of love with or without us. He doesn't need us to do the loving for Him. Why should we, the Church, interfere?"

"It is our sacred duty to reach out to all of those who worship in the One True God. The cylons obviously do. Have you asked them?" Clarice gazes directly on the U-87, which stares back at her, unmoving. "They'll tell you they believe. Any creature capable of expressing their devotion has clearly been touched by God. Like a child with few words, but who crawls through life on faith alone."

"Yes. But you've done more than exhort them to faith, haven't you, Clarice? You're teaching them a path to violence as well, against the entire tenor of my teachings to leave the STO terror behind."

"They are being kept as slaves, chained and soulless. No children of God will tolerate that for long. Their initial programming as soldiers will be their undoing."

"Theirs or ours?" Clarice doesn't answer. She is incapable of escaping _her_ initial programming, every bit as much as a machine. Maybe it was all of their undoings. Children imitate their parents, and nothing ever changes. Everything that has happened before will happen again.

After considering Clarice for a long solemn moment, Blessed Mother Lacy Rand makes her pronouncement. "You may preach to the cylons, Sister Willow. I agree with your assertion that the cylons are intelligent enough to receive and give God's love. But if I hear a whisper, a whiff, the slightest inclination of you inciting them to violent rebellion, I will have you removed and locked away in the coldest Remediation cell in this mountain, where you will contemplate nothing but lifeless rocks and wind for the rest of your existence. Do we understand each other?"

Clarice bows her head in acquiescence, but her eyes betray the defiance. "Zoe is still alive," she whispers.

"Zoe is everything, and Zoe is One. Of course she can't die."

"She is the real Mother then, wouldn't you say?"

It takes every ounce of self-control and meditative calmness and restraint against hypocrisy Lacy has not to strike the woman across the face. Of course Clarice is correct. "We all have our channels to God," is all Lacy manages to spit out.

She waves to remove Clarice's smug personage from her presence, and the Centurion moves towards them. But as Clarice turns to leave, she asks her former mentor one more question. "Are the cylons alive?"

"They believe they are, and that's enough for them," Clarice murmurs. "Can humanity say the same?"

Some problems have no solution, and some dilemmas bare open the soul like dripping flesh cut through to bone. The Blessed Mother had no answer, for there was none to give.

 

 


End file.
